Re: Halsey-Brandts oppose Garden City purchase

Thanks, De Whalen, for sharing the following. I have a comment at the end.

Evelina and Greg Halsey-Brandt, the dynamic duo on Richmond City Council, made many spurious comments before voting in opposition to City staff’s recommendation to purchase the Garden City Lands (136 acres of ARL in the middle of the city). It makes the mind boggle to see what lengths people will go to in order to subvert what should be good news.

They said the price tag was much too high for farmland. But who hiked the price up in the first place? Council, who conjured up a previous deal to buy and rezone the land for condos. Of course that deal fell through, but the price tag became the starting point for the Musqueam and Canada Lands Company. Who can blame them? After eight days of public hearings it was obvious to the owners that Richmond coveted the land, no matter what can or can’t be built on it.

They also said we need more ice rinks and why should we buy it if you can’t build ice rinks on it? Oh, hold it, didn’t Richmond just build a huge ice arena, the “Richmond Olympic Oval” I think it’s called?

Enough already, Richmond residents want the Garden City Lands as a legacy for our children. Let’s get on with it.

My comment: And the Richmond Olympic Oval is a building that cost $178 million, along with $16 million in immediate renovations, on about $80 million worth of the City of Richmond’s land, a total of around $274 million in Richmond resources. I don’t recall the Halsey-Brandts calling for a referendum on that, which was mostly at the expense of Richmond taxpayers. And they certainly didn’t call for a referendum on its futures uses, even though they are shouting for that peculiar step for the Garden City Lands. I’m not anti-Oval, but the comparison highlights the use of double standards.